Out of the Ashes (The Game 5)

He was here.

I braced myself and stepped in. Rugs were still everywhere. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Breaking up with the love of my life was turning into a tale of throwing out what I desperately wanted to cling to.

Worse was the familiar scent of home. His colognes, my aftershave, our body wash, the cleaning products we used, brick, books, and leather.

The living room came into view first, and I instantly hated it. Tate and I had been a messy couple. Not dirty, just untidy. My books and his music crap everywhere. Guitars, picks—picks all over the fucking place—strings, sheet music, textbooks, cases, two keyboards…

I’d throw my ass on the couch after a long day to watch TV, and he would sit in one of the chairs with a guitar and his notes.

I didn’t spot a single guitar in the living room now. The stands were gone too, same with his share of books. And the drawings his students had made him that he’d framed.

Our… I suppressed a sigh. My apartment was fairly large but didn’t have the best floor plan, considering it was designed to be an attic. We had a massive living room combined with a dining area, then a bunch of smaller spaces. Our plan had been to knock down a couple walls to create better-sized bedrooms, because we only had one where a king-size bed fit.

I had. Not we.

I scratched my head.

One by one, Tate had cleared his spaces this week. One tiny room for his instruments, another for clothes and boxes from his childhood home, a third that had been his study. The kitchen had become emptier yesterday. He’d evidently saved the living room for last.

My feet were all but rooted in place, because I knew if I rounded the bathroom to my right, I’d get to the kitchen where he was probably waiting for me.

Get it over with.

I pulled my hoodie over my head and threw it on the hallway table before I bit the bullet.

He sat at the bar, fiddling with his keys.

He’d shaved off his beard.

“You’re still here,” I heard myself say.

He didn’t look my way. He just nodded a little and placed the three keys next to each other on the bar top. We’d fucked on that bar. I’d pushed him up there, forced him onto his back, and wrapped his legs around my hips.

“My mom came by with her spare key,” he replied.

I reckoned I wouldn’t be seeing her again. That was a shame. Tate’s folks were good people.

The other two keys had been his. Home and garage.

To have something to do, I opened the fridge to grab…nothing. Right. Tate had handled the shopping. I liked to cook, but I was useless in a store. I closed the fridge again and filled a glass with water from the tap instead.

I frowned to myself. Six years. How many insignificant routines and things was I going to miss now? Shit I’d taken for granted in the past. Like finding his hipster products all over the bathroom. Beard oils, lotions… Even his mild obsession with scented candles. “They’re for men now too, Master!” he’d say in his defense, when he came home with a candle for fifty fucking dollars that smelled like a shower room or a new car.

I drained the glass, then leaned back against the counter and gripped the edges. “Do we have anything else to say to each other?”

He sighed and finally made eye contact.

You broke my fucking heart.

His entire appearance was a trap. He could lure in anyone with those warm hazel eyes, his silly sense of humor, and a devilish grin. I hadn’t seen the latter in weeks, though, because this had to be the longest breakup in history. It’d started like a cold war about five or six months ago, things that went unsaid, biting remarks, then full-on fighting.

The cheating came as the icing on the shit cake that was my life.

“It’s ironic,” he said. “Just looking at you these days makes me so goddamn angry, but I hate thinking that you really believe I’d go behind your back. I hate that you believe I would hurt you like that—and despite my anger, I don’t want you to be in pain.”

I chuckled darkly. It was either that or I broke down like a child. Jesus Christ, why did he even bother? “You seem to forget I read the texts. No matter how convincing you can be, you can’t erase that. I know the exact moment he went from being the dad of one of your students to something more.”

I went to bed with hundreds of text messages haunting me.

Why don’t we meet up for coffee?

It’d been Tate’s initiative after Franklin had hinted that he wasn’t feeling very well lately. And what kind of parent talked like that to their kid’s teacher? Granted, it’d started out school-related. Franklin had been unable to attend a field trip for which he’d signed up as a volunteer. Then several days of texting where Tate hadn’t pushed whatsoever; he’d responded politely and wished Franklin a speedy recovery. Franklin had been the one pushing. Trying to find an in.